TPT March 2010

G lobal M arketplace

Is there such a thing as clean coal? There is a coal-burning method known as “carbon capture and sequestrations” (CCS), and in October 2009 an innovative energy plant in the severely depressed Appalachian region of the US became the first in the world to put it into practice. Fortunately for the concept’s prospects of being taken seriously, the plant happens to be run by the nation’s largest electric utility. As reported by the Christian Science Monitor , American Electric Power on 1 October started to inject and pump liquefied carbon dioxide, captured from the exhaust of its Mountaineer plant in West Virginia, into porous rock nearly two miles down. The editorial

In 2006, coal accounted for 27% of world energy consumption. Of the coal produced worldwide that year, 62% was shipped to electricity producers, 34% to industrial consumers, and most of the remaining 4% to consumers in the residential and commercial sectors. Over the quarter-century 2006-2030, world coal consumption is expected to increase by 49%, from 127.5 quadrillion Btu to 190.2 quadrillion Btu. (Statistics from International Energy Outlook 2009 ) Coal, the most abundant and the fastest-growing fossil fuel, is also among the dirtiest sources of energy. For those seeking to implement the one clear mandate to come out of Copenhagen – curb carbon emissions – coal provides the obvious starting point.

board of the Monitor considered this a technological feat and a possibly historic moment for the future of the planet. The CCS boosterism of the Boston-based Monitor is remarkable in light of a recent visit by President Barack Obama to its near neighbour the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a tour of the cutting-edge MIT energy labs. The president examined the latest developments in wind, solar, and battery research, and made a speech urging Congress to pass a climate-change law soon. In the view of the hometown newspaper’s editorial board, his time “would have been better spent” in West Virginia. (“Obama’s Drive for a US Global Warming Law,” 23 October) While acknowledging the technological challenge, the Monitor framed the question of whether the burying of atmosphere- altering gases can be made to work on a global scale in starkly political terms. Unless senators from coal-dependent states in the Midwest and West see their states as having a chance to achieve clean coal, and can gain federal support for it, the US would probably not have a climate-change law in 2009. Without such a US measure, the Boston editors wrote, “There is little hope of success at the summit in December in Copenhagen, aimed at a new world pact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” In the event, Copenhagen produced one small but notable success. And HR 2454 – American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – was passed in the House of Representatives; it now goes on to debate and voting in the Senate. › Generally considered laggard on emissions control, the US leads the world in testing the CCS procedure for its expense as well as its potential risks. Estimates on the actual cost of CCS vary widely but go as high as a doubling of the public’s electric bills. The Christian

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